This invention relates generally to gripping equipment and, more particularly, to a gripper for gripping a woven material, such as a polywoven material bag, without puncturing or otherwise damaging the bag.
Bag placer devices are frequently used to prepare containers to be filled with other materials, such as solid, powder, or granular materials. Foods are often packaged in this way. The bag placer devices typically pull a container, such as a cardboard box or paper container, off of a stack, position it for filling, and separate two layers of material so as to open the container. The most typical means for placing and opening a container for filling is suction or vacuum technology. More particularly, suction devices create a seal between a gripping component and the material surface so as to enable the entire container to be lifted or for opposing surfaces to be moved away from one another to open the container for filling.
While the existing devices are generally effective when used with cardboard or paper containers because of the smooth and generally non-pourous characteristics of those materials, the use of traditional bag placing equipment with woven materials, such as polywoven bags, results in high failure rates. In other words, attempting to grip porous materials using suction technology results in unacceptable failure rates and, as a result, inefficient packaging.
Therefore, it would be desirable to have a gripper for use with woven materials that effectively grips the material such as to open polywoven material bags. Further, it would be desirable to have a gripper for opening bags without the use of suction or vacuum technologies. In addition, it would be desirable to have a material gripping device that does not damage the material that it grips.